A far more noteworthy family film is Arthur Christmas, an intelligent 2011 British animated classic from Aardman, the beloved studio who brought us Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run. This marked the studio's second ever foray into pure CGI animation, after years of crushing it at stop-motion stuff. Luckily, the computer-generated characters on display here are still bursting with humanity, soul and humour.
This one really goes to town in answering the question of how Santa can deliver millions of presents all in one night. Short answer - he's very organised and has a lot of help. Jolly old St. Nick has done away with the reindeer and, instead, the gifts are dropped off by his massive U.F.O. spaceship thingy, with assistance from hundreds of highly trained, athletic, paratrooper-style elves.
Santa (Jim Broadbent) is approaching the end of his 70th year on the job and getting tired, so the operation is marshalled by his uber-efficient son Steve (Hugh Laurie), while lanky, clumsy younger son Arthur (James McAvoy) happily labours away sorting the mail, keeping out of everyone's way but keeping the Christmas spirit alive with his wide-eyed, naive innocence. Will he be called upon to rise up, prove his worth and save the day? You bet your ass he will.
It seems hyper-organised Steve will soon be taking the gig over but he's clearly more of a numbers man and doesn't have much of a feel for the 'human' side of things. Hmmmm. Wonder how this'll play out.
After a phenomenal opening set piece full of great concepts and visuals detailing all the ways those sneaky elves get into your house to get prezzies under the tree, the plot kicks in with the revelation that - uh oh - one child's gift has been forgotten! Steve seems pretty chuffed with the percentages and convinces Santa that one missing gift out of two billion ain't bad but, quite rightly, Arthur is aghast.
I enjoy Arthur's ethics here - the idea that every person counts - and the film feels like a smart allegory for how our institutions and politicians think of people, this horrifying idea that we're all numbers and that a few deaths or children in poverty is overall acceptable. Not cool.
Determined that no child be forgotten, Arthur sets off to save the day, with the assistance of a Scottish punk-rock elf named Bryony (Ashley Jensen) and frail but feisty Grandpa Santa, voiced wonderfully by Bill Nighy. The gang have to do things the old-fashioned way, dusting off Grandpa's ancient sleigh and breaking out the reindeer who are more than a little off the pace.
It’s a delightful underdog story with some inventive, exciting action sequences, including Arthur getting mistaken for an alien, the gang getting lost in the Serengeti (no GPS, you see) and a slight detour through Mexico. My personal fave is a bit where a noisy, gift-wrapped toy is treated like a bomb that must be defused before it wakes a child up. It's tense!
A lot of the themes of technology versus tradition and sibling rivalry might fly over younger viewers' heads but there's more than enough cute, flashy visuals and amusing pratfall humour to keep them entertained. I find it impossible to dislike a film that works this hard to be good-natured and silly. The film, as with most of Aardman's output, is not interested in pandering or trying to be down with the cool kids, so there's a refreshing lack of modern references and pop star cameos that tend to date this kind of thing. The all-star British voice cast is suitably fantastic too. I mean, who better to voice a bumbling old Santa than Jim Broadbent? Yes, this is a really good one.
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